Fake Pot, Real Profits
How synthetic drugs became a booming (and mostly legal) business.
How synthetic drugs became a booming (and mostly legal) business.
Ben Paynter Businessweek Jun 2011 Permalink
This new strain of Republican is not one Wisconsin, nor the United States, has ever seen...The new Republicans are corporate wrecking crews, given a sledgehammer, a piece of legislation and a command to "make it fit."
A profile of the founding editor of Radar and current editor of The Fix, penned by a former employee.
Aaron Gell The New York Observer Jun 2011 20min Permalink
A profile of Ayman al-Zawahri, the Egyptian doctor who became Bin Laden’s #2 and has now taken over Al-Qaeda.
Lawrence Wright New Yorker Sep 2002 Permalink
The first five years of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s tenure have been marked by a dangerous consolidation of power.
According to political allies and Western diplomats who have worked with Maliki, he isn't so much power-hungry as deeply cynical and mistrusting. The Dawa Party, which Maliki joined as a young man, was hunted by Saddam's Baathist regime. Even those living in exile -- like Maliki, who lived in Syria and Iran for more than 20 years -- organized themselves into isolated cells to protect against the regime's spies and limit the information that any one member might divulge if he were captured or compromised. Maliki's early career was saturated in perpetual suspicion.
Ben Van Heuvelen Foreign Policy Jun 2011 20min Permalink
A profile of driver A.J. Foyt on the eve of what was supposed to be his final Indy 500.
Ed Hinton The National Sports Daily May 1991 Permalink
How digital shifts the way we produce, distribute, and consume content:
The future book — the digital book — is no longer an immutable brick. It's ethereal and networked, emerging publicly in fits and starts. An artifact ‘complete’ for only the briefest of moments.
Craig Mod craigmod.com Jun 2011 25min Permalink
On the relationship between Keith Olbermann and the camera.
David Carr New York Times Magazine Jun 2011 10min Permalink
In the early years of the Iraq war, the U.S. military developed a technology so secret that soldiers would refuse to acknowledge its existence, and reporters mentioning the gear were promptly escorted out of the country. That equipment—a radio-frequency jammer—was upgraded several times, and eventually robbed the Iraq insurgency of its most potent weapon, the remote-controlled bomb.
Noah Shachtman Wired Jun 2011 25min Permalink
A profile of Ludwig Minelli, the head of the Swiss assisted suicide organization Dignitas.
Bruce Falconer The Atlantic Mar 2010 30min Permalink
A profile of Chris Evans, star of the upcoming Captain America:
At this point, which was a…number of drinks in, it was easy to forget that it really was an interview, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't cross my mind that something might happen (and that we'd go to the Oscars and get married and have babies forever until we died?). But there was always the question of how much of it was truly Chris Evans, and whom I should pretend to be in response.
Edith Zimmerman GQ Jul 2011 15min Permalink
On secrets that surprise no one:
This is the paradox of public space: even if everyone knows an unpleasant fact, saying it in public changes everything.
Slavoj Žižek London Review of Books Jan 2011 10min Permalink
On Bitcoin, the world’s first “decentralized digital currency.”
The Economist Jun 2011 10min Permalink
The search for the missing Holocaust hero began in 1945. The unending quest tore his family apart.
Joshua Prager The Wall Street Journal Feb 2009 20min Permalink
When a CIA operation in Pakistan went bad, leaving three men dead, the episode offered a rare glimpse inside a shadowy world of espionage. It also jeopardized America’s most critical outpost in the war against terrorism.
Matthew Teague Men's Journal Jun 2011 25min Permalink
The name Shecky can vacillate from noun to verb to adjective. The opinion of every comedian during that gilded age of show business, whether they were Republican Bob Hope or hipster Lenny Bruce, is that Shecky Greene was the wildest of them all. The craziest of them all. Most importantly - the funniest of them all.
Kliph Nesteroff WFMU Jun 2011 35min Permalink
“Radically brilliant. Absurdly ahead of its time. Ridiculously poorly planned.” An oral history of the National Sports Daily.
Alex French, Howie Kahn Grantland Jun 2011 55min Permalink
John Ross, rebel reporter, became the sort of devoted gringo scribe who would give up drugs and drinking in order to better write about the native revolutionaries; the sort of man who used dolls to preach armed revolution to high schoolers in the weeks after September 11th.
Wes Enzinna n+1 Jun 2011 15min Permalink
A profile of Florida legend—and pardoned killer—Charlie Driver.
Mike Riggs The Awl Jun 2011 20min Permalink
On LA Noire and the gaming paradoxes presented by pairing nuanced storytelling with a player’s free will.
Tom Bissell Grantland Jun 2011 25min Permalink
On the rise of the modern city – and the rise of missing persons.
James Mokeller Bugby The Atlantic Nov 1879 20min Permalink
An essay on gynobibliophobia and the critical reception of women writers.
Francine Prose Harper's Jun 1998 Permalink
The story of Daily Kos and its founder, Markos Moulitsas.
Jessica Lussenhop City Pages Jun 2011 15min Permalink
On witnessing an incredible junior college basketball game 23 years ago in North Dakota.
Chuck Klosterman Grantland Jun 2011 15min Permalink
The life and death of Anna Nicole Smith.
Dan P. Lee New York Jun 2011 30min Permalink